Thornbury in Herefordshire

Visit Thornbury and the surrounding villages and stay in bed & breakfast accommodation:

Thornbury, Gloucestershire, is a quiet little town with good views across the Severn. It has many interesting houses which witness to its earlier importance and a broad street sweeping down to an early 16th century church with an earlier buttressed and parapeted tower. This is a landmark for miles around. There has been a manor here since 925, in the reign of King Athelstan. At the time of the Norman Conquest William I bestowed the manor and all the lands on his wife Matilda. It later passed into the hands of 28 generations of the Stafford family. until it was sold to the Duke of Norfolk in the early 18th century and it remained in the Howard family until 1959. In 1508 Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, started to rebuild the present castle on the site of the old manor. An indiscretion treated by Cardinal Wolsey as an insult led to the duke's impeachment and execution in 1521, before his castle was completed. Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn spent some time here, as did Mary Tudor. The castle had a long period of disuse though the south side of the gate-house was re-roofed in 1720. A certain amount of restoration work was done by Salvin in 1850. The inner court has perhaps best preserved the atmosphere of the original castle. There is a huge double chimney even larger and more elaborate than those of Hampton Court. Below the heraldic arms of the Staffords is the date “Anno Christi 1514”. It is worth trying to see some of the extracts from the Duke of Buckingham's household book, when he fed 589 persons on Christmas Day, 1507.